Cooking Measurement Converter

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Cooking Measurement Converter

Cups, spoons, grams and millilitres, adjusted for the ingredient.
Grams –
Ounces –
Millilitres –
US cups –
Tablespoons US –
Teaspoons US –

Why Cups to Grams Is Not One Number

A cup is a measure of volume. A gram is a measure of weight. Converting between them needs to know how heavy the ingredient is, and ingredients differ enormously. One US cup of all-purpose flour weighs about 120 grams. One cup of honey weighs about 340 grams. Same cup, nearly three times the weight.

That is why this converter asks which ingredient you are measuring before it gives you a number. Any tool that offers a single cups-to-grams answer is right for water and wrong for almost everything else.

The Flour Problem

Flour is where most recipes go wrong, and the reason is how you fill the cup.

Dip the cup into the bag and you compact the flour. Spoon it in loosely and level the top with a knife and you do not. The difference between those two methods is routinely 20 to 25 percent, which on a cake is the difference between tender and dry. Every weight on this page assumes the spoon-and-level method, which is the standard King Arthur Baking and most US recipe developers write to.

This is the strongest argument for weighing rather than measuring. A kitchen scale removes the variable completely, costs very little, and is the single change that makes baking repeatable. Once you have one, 120 grams is 120 grams no matter who fills the cup.

A Cup Is Not the Same Everywhere

Three different cups appear in recipes, and the recipe rarely says which one it means:

  • US cup: 236.6 ml. The default in American recipes and the one this converter treats as “cups” unless you pick otherwise.
  • Metric cup: 250 ml. Standard in Australia and New Zealand, and about 6 percent larger than a US cup.
  • UK legacy cup: 284 ml. Appears in older British cookbooks. Modern UK recipes almost always use grams and millilitres instead, which is one reason British baking instructions tend to be more reliable.

Six percent sounds trivial. Across a recipe using several cup measures it compounds, and in bread or pastry, where the ratio of flour to liquid is the whole point, it shows.

Two Ingredients Worth Extra Care

Kosher salt. Diamond Crystal and Morton are both called kosher salt and are not interchangeable by volume. Diamond Crystal crystals are larger and lighter, so a cup weighs about 142 grams against Morton’s roughly 240. A recipe calling for a tablespoon of one, made with the other, can come out close to twice as salty. American recipe writers usually mean Diamond Crystal, and the good ones say so.

Brown sugar. Recipes assume it is packed, pressed firmly into the cup until it holds the shape when tipped out. Loose brown sugar can weigh 30 percent less. If a recipe does not say packed, it still almost certainly means packed.

Quick Reference

Weight of one US cup, spoon-and-level method:

  • Water: 237 g
  • All-purpose flour: 120 g
  • Bread flour: 127 g
  • Granulated sugar: 200 g
  • Brown sugar, packed: 213 g
  • Icing sugar: 120 g
  • Butter: 227 g
  • Milk: 244 g
  • Honey: 340 g
  • Rolled oats: 90 g
  • Cocoa powder: 85 g

And the volume relationships, which never change: 1 US cup is 16 tablespoons, 48 teaspoons, or 8 fluid ounces.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many grams are in a cup?
It depends entirely on what is in the cup. Flour is about 120 g, sugar about 200 g, water about 237 g and honey about 340 g. There is no single answer, which is why this converter asks for the ingredient first.
Why do my results differ from another website?
Usually one of two reasons. Either the other site assumes a different cup size, since US and metric cups differ by 6 percent, or it assumes flour is scooped rather than spooned, which changes the weight by up to a quarter. Published charts also disagree slightly among themselves because ingredients genuinely vary.
Are ounces here weight or volume?
The converter distinguishes them. Fluid ounces are volume, listed under volume units. Ounces on the results panel are weight. They are not the same and confusing them is a common source of failed recipes: 8 fluid ounces of flour is not 8 ounces of flour.
Should I measure by weight or volume?
Weight, whenever the recipe gives you the option, and particularly for baking. Volume measurement introduces a variable you cannot control and cannot see. For liquids the difference barely matters, since a millilitre of water is a gram and close enough for milk and stock too.
Is the ingredient list complete?
No. It covers the ingredients that appear most often in recipes written in cups. If you need something that is not listed, weigh a cup of it once on a scale and you will have your own figure, which is more accurate than any chart because it accounts for your actual product.
Is anything I enter saved?
No. The conversion runs in your browser and nothing is sent to a server.

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American recipes also give oven temperatures in Fahrenheit. The temperature converter handles those, including the gas marks British ovens use.